


Downwards

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Demonstuck [42]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bad mental health days, Demonstuck, Gen, dirk and hal are okay bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 18:41:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18371855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Dirk gets a little too far into his own head. Hal pulls him out again.





	Downwards

_I should have been able to control it._

If you needed something depressing, the fact that you aren't sure which demon that random thought's referencing should do it. The fact that you've been possessed enough times for it to be a question of "which time?" is pretty fucked up, really. You're a _hunter_. It shouldn't have happened at all. Ever. Period. 

_Right, and I should be capable of performing simple tasks without getting bogged the fuck down, but here we are, right?_

Yeah. Here you are. Staring into the fridge. 

How long have you been standing here, again? 

Fuck it. You're not hungry anyway. 

_Slam the door. Slam the fucking door. Come on, Dirk, you know you want to do it. Break shit. Give yourself a reason._

(You know exactly what you want a reason for.) 

You close the refrigerator door gently, almost carefully. The bottles of beer and soda in the door don't even clink. Fuck, does D actually have a reason for stocking this much beer? Fancy shit, too; you have to open the fridge again to double check that you don't recognize the labels, and sure enough you don't; somehow you can't see your bro drinking this kind of shit. Twelve percent ABV, a dead Russian on the label, dark as coffee or as your current state of mind when you hold it up to the light to check. 

_Drink it. All of it. The whole four pack._ Both _the four packs._

No, because you would literally die. Jake and John would be...upset. 

_Eh, they'd get over it._

"Nope," you murmur, and put the bottle back where you found it. It clinks against its brothers when you close the door this time. 

_Such a fuckup._

You're tempted to agree with your inner monologue there, but then again? It's a couple of bottles. They're not even broken. You did absolutely nothing wrong. No reason to...

_Check the inbox, pick something out and fucking run with it._

...again. No. You will _literally_ die if you do that; if going out on a job alone doesn't get you killed, D's going to finish you off if you come home. Which you would deserve, honestly; he taught you better than that. You know better than that. You're better than that. 

_I should be, anyway._

You should really call Rose. (Except you shouldn't bother her for this.) You should text D. Or Dave. (They're with their partners.) You should get Jake. John. Davepeta, Jr, Seb, Gale—

"Did you know," Hal murmurs maybe six inches from your ear, so close that you would be able to feel the heat from his body if he were just a smidgen closer to human, "did you know that my mind gets fuzzy when you're this depressed?" 

"Shit!" It's a good thing you're just standing here with one hand on the fridge door, not holding the bottle; you definitely would have dropped it. (And damn but pushing down your gut reaction to that knowledge is difficult.) "I'm not fucking—" 

The last of that denial gets lost, because you use the fridge for a little bit of leverage to turn around fast enough that it almost counts as a combat move, and suddenly you're face-to-face with a shikigami who hasn't had time to put on a faintly amused face for your benefit. There's concern in Hal's bright red eyes, worry and pity and understanding in the familiar lines of his face, and god _damn_ but you don't remember how to lie right now. 

_Right, because I'm a fucking useless dumbass._

Hal rubs at his eyes as you think that. "Dirk." 

"What." Brusque. The perfect tone to use on family members expressing concern. _Idiot._

"Do you want to run through the checklist, or shall I?" 

You know exactly what he's talking about. "I don't know what you're talking about." 

Hal actually laughs. (This is when you know he's being truthful about his thoughts being fucked up by your mental state; there's something under his laughter, irregular and buzzing like static on a badly tuned radio.) " _Dirk_." 

"I don't—fine." _How pathetic am I, if I can't fool someone I fucking created?_ No, stop that shit. Stop it. Deep breaths. "You need to do it." 

"Of course." Those uncanny eyes haven't left your face since you turned around. You're going to just...close your eyes, as he starts reciting the list. "Have you eaten today?" 

"Yes." Leftovers. Ground beef and rice shoved into a tortilla and dumped in the microwave for ninety seconds. It doesn't cover all the basic food groups, but it has enough nutrients to keep your mental state from nosediving purely because of low blood sugar or whatever the fuck. "I ate." 

"Drank?" 

"Yeah." Not just caffeinated shit, either; you're capable of recognizing that consuming water is a more effective way of hydration. Also you don't deserve what you like right now; no mountain dew, no orange juice, no tasty shit. 

"Slept." 

"Sort of." Hey, you've struggled with that since you were fourteen. Maybe younger. "No less than usual." 

"Environmental triggers?"

"I—" 

You have to stop, for this one. Really consider. Did you see something that tipped you off the mesa of semi-normal mental functioning and into your current morass of self-loathing and borderline suicidal ideation? Hear it? Feel it? Fuck, this is difficult. You want to just _stop_. 

But. No. Nope. 

"I don't know." 

"I am not asking for hard facts, Dirk." Hal blinks for possibly the first time since he stepped up behind you; it's disturbingly mechanical, somehow. You wonder what the exact level of disruption your mental issues cause him is. You wonder how fucked up it is that you don't feel even more guilty than you already do over it. "Can I make some assumptions?" 

Fuck. "Knock yourself out." 

For some reason, that gets you a little twist of his mouth that'd be a smile on you. "No thanks...you haven't talked to anyone all day, have you?"

"That...may be true." (It is.) 

"Jake's been off at that fair for two days. John's on a job with Dave and Karkat. D's...busy." 

"You mean he's taking advantage of the fact that you and I are the most capable of minding our own business to have mothman fuck his brains out?" The house may have selective soundproofing, but when Grey and D _both_ disappear for this long there are only so many explanations.

"Yes, that. And I've been occupied with the current project until a couple minutes ago." 

The current project. Liv's body. You should be _helping_ with that shit. 

"Dirk. Don't." Hal must be able to read some of this newest wave of shame on your face, because he reaches up and flicks your nose not quite hard enough to hurt. "Snap out of it, alright?" 

"Nah." 

"Come on." 

"What?" 

"Come on. No more isolating and spiraling; you're coming to the workroom and doing some work on a project. I don't care which project—helping me, maybe?" This time Hal actually does smile, a calculatedly devilish expression. "Or I can _make_ you a project." 

Meaning...he'll break something. "No thanks. I'm competent enough to do some work on Liv, if you want." 

"Perfect. Come on." Hal slings an arm over your shoulders, pulling you in so he can guide you through the door and towards the workroom. And you go along with the guidance, even lean into him a little. 

Fuck, but you're so damn lucky. 

(And no. You don't have that thought, that you don't deserve the luck. Or if you do, at least you can push it away with less effort that before.)


End file.
